The numbers were collated by Mint after extensive interviews with 22 current and former employees across these seven companies.

All seven companies are still in denial mode and attribute the planned exits to a “marginal” increase in the number of poor performers on account of a “more rigorous” performance evaluation process.

In the past, between 1% and 1.5% of a large Indian IT firm’s employees would be asked to leave every year on account of poor performance. The number was 3% for foreign companies with large Indian operations. This year, the range is likely to be 2-6% across Indian and foreign companies.